Kerr confident of halting losing run

Head coach James Kerr is confident his side’s losing sequence will not become habit forming.

Banbury Bulls travel to Old Centralians for Saturday’s South West One East clash on the back of four straight defeats.

We’re improving each week, I can see that and so can the players

Head coach James Kerr

Having lost to leaders Maidenhead and then second-placed Newbury Blues last weekend, Bulls now face the side in third place. It’s getting easier, on paper at least!

Bulls will look back on missed tackles in midfield and how easily they coughed up the ball in the opposition 22 as the major reasons they lost against Newbury at Bodicote Park.

But they must draw on several positives from the game against a solid Newbury side.

Kerr said: “We are not getting beat comprehensively, if we were that would be a problem. But small, unforced errors are costing us in games that we deserve to get something from.

“That has to change over the next few games but I’m confident we will not get into a losing habit. We just have to be more street-wise in games.

“We’re improving each week, I can see that and so can the players. We are more controlled in our play but we need to learn how to close games out.

“The players have all bought-in to what we are trying to do here, my job is to bring it all together.”

Looking back on Saturday’s defeat, Kerr added: “We didn’t do enough early on against Newbury and they didn’t have to work too hard for their two tries in the second half.

“Newbury left a few tries out there and so did we. But the positives are that we had more possession and we were more clinical.”

Captain Ian Isham returns and Chris Phillips should have recovered from a head injury sustained against Newbury. Matt Goode may be back but second row forward James Burge will be out for six to eight weeks with a shoulder injury.